Ms. Virgin White

They say "it", the other three,
For they can only aspire
To bequeath "her" beauty.
Far from her alone
The days are not far from
Her precarious cold
Held in the frozen palm
Letting her snowflakes
Come to fall, In awe to all
She is a beauty, and I am man
But we are not alike
In gender, nor in life,
For I can stand,
Though cannot stand, when she begins
Her dismal, dreary days,
Particularly that one
Before I can open mine
The gifts from others, like myself
From my dear lady-love,
My mother and father
And good ole' friends.
She is His daughter made to come and go,
And as she is so near, I do not feel alone
Imagination running wild
Christmas is almost here
And she is not but clever
To erase the landscape, from the other three
To smear and write, all over her
Her virgin white.

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”